Yang justified the deal by saying the move is part of Yahoo!'s open strategy:

"WebMD sells their audiences on Yahoo!, Yelp can customize how their local search results appear using Search Monkey, advertisers and publishers will buy and sell in an open marketplace with our upcoming AMP! from Yahoo!, and we're now opening our paid search results to Google."

Of course, in order to make money from this deal, Yahoo needs to get eyeballs to their site and searches need to be conducted. But their numbers are falling in U.S. search queries, so they're going to have to do a lot more than a Google deal to save themselves.

Yang seems to understand this, "It is, of course, just one step. We'll continue to look at all of our alternatives to advance our strategies and enhance growth and profitability." But he doesn't have much time to prove himself before the August 1 shareholder meeting.

What do you think about Yang's statements? Is comparing Google to WebMd and Yelp like comparing apples and oranges? Did his blog help or hurt him with shareholders? Sound off in the comments.

The U.K. Supreme Court has granted permission in part for Google to appeal against a ruling relating to a dispute over the user information through cookies via use of the Apple Safari browser.
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